Behind dozens of coats in an East Village apartment, a woman helping her aunt sort through her belongings opened a wooden box and found a Georgia O’Keeffe. The painting, a 1930 landscape titled Near Abiquiu, New Mexico I, had spent roughly four decades tucked away in the closet. Now it’s headed to auction with an estimate of around $3 million.
The owner’s mother bought the painting for $3,800 in 1963 and gave it to her daughter to celebrate earning her master’s degree. It hung in the apartment until the mid-1980s, when, according to the family, a guest paid a little too much attention to it during a bridge game. The owner boxed it up for safekeeping, and there it stayed until she told her niece where to look.
At just 10 by 24 inches, the painting captures the rolling contours of the New Mexico landscape that would inspire O’Keeffe for decades. For years, scholars knew the work through a photograph taken in 1931. Now visitors can see the original in a free exhibition at Christie’s at 20 Rockefeller Center through November 17, 2026, the day it goes up for auction.
